Table Of ContentCONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Preface
About the Editors
About the Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Postmodern Career Counseling: A New Perspective for the 21st Century
Part I: Perspectives
Chapter 1: Career Counseling in Postmodern Times: Emergence and Narrative Conceptions
Chapter 2: The Postmodern Impulse and Career Counselor Preparation
Part II: Principles
Chapter 3: Multicultural Career Counseling: Limitations of Traditional Career Theory and Scope of
Training
Chapter 4: Culture and Context in Constructionist Approaches to Career Counseling
Chapter 5: Postmodern Career Assessment: Advantages and Considerations
Part III: Procedures
Chapter 6: Using the My Career Story Workbook With an African American High School Student
Chapter 7: Using My Career Chapter With a Malaysian Engineer to Write and Tell a Career Story
Chapter 8: Constructing a Course: Constructivist Group Career Counseling With Low-Income,
First-Generation College Students
Chapter 9: Early Recollections With a Paroled African American Male: A Career-Focused Group
Approach
Chapter 10: The Storied Approach to Career Co-Construction With an Older Female Client
Chapter 11: Using the Genogram for Career Assessment and Intervention With an Economically
Disadvantaged Client
Chapter 12: Using Life Role Analysis for Career Assessment and Intervention With a Transgender
Client
Chapter 13: Using Personal Construct Psychology: Constructing a Career With an Asian American
Client
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Chapter 14: Tools to Connect: Using Career Card Sorts with a Latina Client
Chapter 15: Possible Selves Mapping with a Mexican American Prospective First-Generation College
Student
Chapter 16: The Life Design Genogram: Self-Construction with an Italian Female Transitioning to
the World of Work
Chapter 17: Relational Cultural Career Assessment: The Case of an Indian Immigrant First-Year
College Student
Chapter 18: Solution-Focused Career Counseling With a Male Military Veteran
Chapter 19: Using the One Life Tools Narrative Framework: From Clarification to Intentional
Exploration With an East Asian Female
Chapter 20: From the Systems Theory Framework to My System of Career Influences: Integrating
Theory and Practice With a Black South African Male
Chapter 21: Action Theory of Career Assessment for Clients With Chronic Illness and Disability
Chapter 22: Using Chaos Theory of Careers as a Counseling Framework With a Female African
American College Student
Conclusion: Postmodern Principles and Teaching Considerations for 21st–Century Career Counseling
Glossary
Index
Technical Support
End User License Agreement
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Postmodern Career Counseling
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A Handbook of Culture, Context, and Cases
edited by
Louis A. Busacca and Mark C. Rehfuss
American Counseling
Association
6101 Stevenson Avenue, Suite 600
Alexandria, VA 22304
www.counseling.org
5
Copyright © 2017 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted
under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or
stored in a database or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
American Counseling Association
6101 Stevenson Avenue, Suite 600
Alexandria, VA 22304
Associate Publisher Carolyn C. Baker
Digital and Print Development Editor Nancy Driver
Senior Production Manager Bonny E. Gaston
Copy Editor Kay Mikel
Cover and text design by Bonny E. Gaston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Busacca, Louis A., editor. | Rehfuss, Mark C., editor.
Title: Postmodern career counseling: a handbook of culture, context, and cases / edited by Louis A. Busacca and Mark C. Rehfuss.
Description: Alexandria, VA : American Counseling Association, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016020323 | ISBN 9781556203589 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Vocational guidance. | Cross-cultural counseling. | Career development—Case studies.
Classification: LCC HF5381 .P6727 2016 | DDC 331.702—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020323
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DEDICATION
To my late loving father Sam Busacca, Sr., and family.
—Louis A. Busacca
To Tracie, Adelyn, Taylor, and Claire, the most incredible women I have ever known.
—Mark C. Rehfuss
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FOREWORD
Mark Pope1
Insecurity is the predominant psychological characteristic of the postmodern historical period. What Drs.
Busacca and Rehfuss have done in this book offers career counselors who are facing such issues with their
clients an important perspective that enables them to plan their career counseling interventions accordingly.
They accomplished this by gathering together the brightest thinkers and practitioners of constructivist and
constructionist career counseling, both the new and the more mature, to write about their passion. And this
passion comes through in each of the chapters.
Insecurity about precarious work is an inherent part of career choice and job search, but in the postmodern era
it is both the quantity and quality of the insecurity that has changed and is changing. During the industrial
era, workers moved even further away from having some felt control of the means and outcomes of
production. In some cases, benevolent owners tried to compensate for that inherent insecurity by pledges of
lifelong employment, but in many cases workers had to fight for such job security with labor unions as their
instrument. And fight they did! In fact there were 4,740 labor strikes in 1937 alone.2 In the modern era,
however, the power of U.S. labor unions plateaued, and during the Reagan presidency the utter defeat of the
PATCO air traffic controllers union strike of 1981 set in motion the gradual descent of union power, which
continues even to this day. This descent coincided with the beginning of the postmodern era, shortening of
the capitalist boom or bust economic cycles, and a concomitant rise in workforce insecurity for both blue- and
white-collar workers. Thus the time is right for this book as postmodern theories and interventions are
coming to the forefront of our profession.
What also makes this book unique is the chapter authors' thorough integration of cultural context into the
constructionist paradigm in career counseling. Nowhere else in the career counseling and development
literature will you find this consistent dedication to such integration. For this reason alone, this book sets a
new landmark for our field.
And finally, this book is a very real tribute to the pioneering and continuing work of Dr. Mark Savickas, as
both a theoretician and a mentor. His impact on our field is indescribable; in so many ways you can see his
soul permeating each chapter. His mentorship is evident in the professional lives of so many of these authors
and of the two editors, Louis A. Busacca and Mark C. Rehfuss, as well as in my own.
This is a very special book. A treasure! I hope that you both learn from and enjoy it as much as I have.
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Notes
1Mark Pope is a past president of both the National Career Development Association and the American
Counseling Association. He is also a former editor of The Career Development Quarterly and an Eminent
Career Award recipient, curators' professor and chair, Department of Counseling and Family Therapy,
University of Missouri–Saint Louis.
2Brenner, A., Day, B., & Ness, I. (Eds.). (2009). The encyclopedia of strikes in American history (p. ii). Armonk,
NY: M. E. Sharpe.
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PREFACE
Two colleagues discuss the reduction in hours in their department and the rapid change of assignments over
the past year. The company they work for has been going through restructuring due to offshore outsourcing,
and it has implemented new computer programs that have replaced the need for some workers. Several
employees in their department have already been laid off or had their hours reduced. Leon, a middle-aged
African American with a bachelor's degree, has just been informed of a 40% reduction in his part-time hours
due to the company's need to comply with the Affordable Care Act. After 4 years with the company, Leon is
worried that he may need to find another job or eventually be laid off. He mentions how difficult it will be for
his wife and child now that his hours have been cut, and more so if he loses his job. He is despondent and
repeats over and over that he just cannot imagine having to look around for another job again after the
struggles he experienced when he was laid off from a full-time position 6 years ago. Leon talks to his colleague
Ann about how he struggles to focus on his work and how he just lost an account because of his preoccupation
with the uncertainty over his job, career, and family.
Ann has been a full-time employee for 2 years. She is 30 years old, a lesbian, and working on her master's
degree. She fears she will be downsized or asked to take an unappealing position within the company. Her
partner of 5 years is happy living in what they consider a gay-friendly community, and she does not want to
move. Ann discloses that she too has been preoccupied and not doing her best work for the department lately.
Although Ann has her own concerns, she listens and helps Leon understand how much he has contributed to
a series of important projects and how he has demonstrated skills that the company increasingly needs. Leon
and Ann acknowledge feeling alone and unable to share their fear and insecurity with other employees or with
their supervisor. They both feel a lack of guidance from their supervisor and the company with regard to how
to position themselves for possible transition. Leon decides to take advantage of his employee assistance
program and seek out counseling services.
Graduate students learning about career counseling and practitioners who provide career services need to
know how to assist individuals like Leon and Ann. In the uncertainty of today's workplace, career counselors
are increasingly called upon to help clients navigate work and life situations, which are typically in a state of
flux. Every client's experience is embedded in a cultural context, which is a factor that makes each client's
experience unique. Thus we may also inquire: How might Leon and Ann's culture and context influence their
experience at work? The most effective counseling approach for Leon and Ann requires extending the
postmodern perspective in general to career counseling in particular. Postmodern Career Counseling: A
Handbook of Culture, Context, and Cases demonstrates how counselors can holistically apply postmodern career
assessment and counseling to clients like Leon and Ann in their social and cultural contexts.
We believe there remains a need for scholarly publications within the counseling profession that highlight the
usefulness of the most prominent career counseling models and methods derived from postmodern
epistemologies and that also represent a range of diverse populations. For this book, we operationally define
the phrase postmodern career counseling to include career counseling paradigms and processes derived from the
epistemologies of contemporary psychological constructivism, social constructionism, and narrative. We adopt
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